Co-op Castle
by NovaStars42
Summary: Kimi bites off more than she can chew when she takes a job as The Red Dawn boarding house's new manager. [set in AU] [oc x ?]


"Deidara, I've been sitting here enjoying my paper in silence and then in you come, half naked and soaking wet, and I find myself asking why? Why, when I finally get a moment to myself?" Sasori was not a patient man to say the least. At only thirty five, he acted more like an old man than he did a person in the prime of their life. About ten seconds earlier, his friend (if you could call him that) waltzed into the room, and heaving a heavy sigh, threw himself down on the couch next to Sasori.

"Itachi's stupid little brother threw me out of the bathroom!" The blonde exclaimed, clad only in a pair of wet boxers and an angry look set on his features, "he wouldn't even let me grab a towel!"

"And how did he manage that, might I ask?" The red head asked, raising an eyebrow. Deidara only crossed his arms and grumbled something about not wanting to talk about it.

Currently the pair sat in the living room, enjoying their joint day off. It was nice with all of the other tenants in the house at work. It was currently summer, and hot, though with the air conditioning on neither seemed to notice. A perfect afternoon for relaxing really. That was until the door swung open, and in strode another tenant.

"Hey tranny, you trying to fucking seduce Sasori again?" Hidan, the leather clad asshole smirked as he threw the keys of his motorcycle down on a nearby table. If he could be avoided, it was probably best, though he was cruelest to Deidara of all people.

"At least I got a job yeah, you got fired again didn't you?" With a smirk painted on his face, the blonde knew he had him this time.

"Fuck you!" The silver haired man spat, taking off his boot and heaving it at the younger male's head. Snickering while he ducked, Deidara continued his insults.

"And at least I can get up in the morning with out whining like a four year old and a shot of whiskey."

The seething jashinist stomped upstairs and slammed his bedroom door shut, immediately turning on some sort of death metal music as loud as the stereo could bare.

"See what you've gone and done Deidara?" Sasori sighed, he could tell by now that attempting to continue reading would be a hassle, but he was prepared to try anyway.

"Me? What'd I do danna, he started it!"

"Go finish your shower brat, the other brat just shut the water off," Sasori commanded, sick of the bickering and the annoying younger men. He tried to go back to his paper then, he assumed Deidara had gone back upstairs when he heard a knock at the door. The red head had no intentions getting up to get it, being to immersed in his reading.

"Can I help you un?"

Sasori nearly choked. Whipping down his paper from his line of view he found Deidara, now less wet but with the same amount of cloths on with the door wide open and a girl standing on the front stoop.

"Deidara! Go upstairs! Christ, what am I, your baby sitter?"

The younger artist reluctantly, but quickly, left the doorway for the bathroom as his superior came to the door.

"What is it?" Sasori asked impatiently.

"I came about the management job in the paper?" She asked timidly, showing him a folded up, ragged copy of Fridays newspaper with a red circle around one of the squares in the classifieds. Sasori inspected the article, everything seemed to check out. It didn't surprise him that the owner would go and do something like this without telling anyone. Sasori said nothing and allowed her in, motioning to sit in a worn green chair from no earlier than the nineteen seventies.

Sasori made himself a cup of tea and sat back down, picking up his now wrinkled paper and attempted again to go back to reading. He was successful for all of thirty seconds.

"Look, all I'm saying is if we put the old water heater in the shell of a newer one, we could probably pass inspection," a gruff voice came as it entered the room, Kakuzu was home from his job at the bank. He spoke to none other than the pair that owned the building, Konan and Nagato. The woman was quite pleasant, and though she never spoke much, she was not easy to push around. The man on the other hand, was not so pleasant, he not only had a disturbing like for facial piercings, but he was quite arrogant and insisted that people call him Pein. The group shuffled down the hallway near the kitchen and went into an office, completely ignoring the girl. Sasori was just about to raise his reading material again when in filed the rest of the buildings tenants. Sighing, Sasori gave up.

"Go, first door on the right," Sasori told the clearly nervous girl, what, was she biting her nails? Disgusting. She was on her feet, awkwardly fast walking out if the living room as fast as she could. Minutes later she was seated in front of a large dark wood desk, being questioned by the orange haired man.

"What's your name and what are your qualifications?" He asked right off the bat.

"Kimiko, you can call me Kimi if you like," the girl smiled. She smiled with her teeth with straight shoulders and confidence Pein noted, though her over all body language was that of apprehension, "and I uh, managed a nice cream parlor where I used to live."

Honestly, anything was better than nothing. For a while now, his wife had been bothering him about going on a trip so they got tickets, and when their past manager quit, just like all the rest, it sent him scrambling to find another house manager. A happy wife was a happy life right? Now he just had to make it look good. He was about to start in on another set of questions when Konan interrupted him.

"For Christ's sakes! You hired! We leave tomorrow morning Nagato! What are you even doing?" The couple started to bicker, producing a sigh out of the strange man on the other side of the room.

"I'm Kakuzu," the man grunted as he pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on, "I'm the accountant for the building and I'm going to be keeping an eye on you while the happy couple is out. We're paying you three hundred dollars a month, but the top loft of the building is yours to live in, so don't go complaining about money. We shell out cash for dinner, but breakfast and lunch are on your own," the man instructed as he stood in front of her, then he reached over and pulled a sticky note off of the desk. He looked at it for a second before putting it back down to rummage through more papers until he found what he was looking for.

"This is a list of stuff you need to be on top of," he said, about to hand it to herm only to pull it out of her reach at the last second, "and try to keep things fairly cheep if your shopping for the house," he sneered before he shoved the list into her lap and left. Kimi was up shortly after him, fallowing him out to get away from the arguing in the office.

Kimi supposed she was incredibly lucky, hired on the spot with a new apartment, she was sure she couldn't have found a better place to work. In the back of her mind, she hoped this would be at least a little interesting, but common sense told her to wish it wouldn't.

"Hey, your still here," carrying a bag of chips, the blonde who'd originally opened the door to let her in came from the kitchen to her right. Now fully clothed and dry, he was confident Sasori wouldn't yell at him, at least for now.

"Yeah, uh, they hired me for building manager!" Kimi smiled, and took a handful of cheese flavored potato chips as he offered.

"That's great, congrats, you got stuff to move in? I could get Kisame and Tobi to help you if you'd like. We need more pretty girls around here you know?" Kimi blushed with his words, was he really saying that to her?

"Oh, uh, oh, I just have a chair and some sheets and cloths back where I'm staying, I think I can get it, but thanks," she tried to back away but he wouldn't allow it.

"That's fine, I'll help you and then we can go out for ice cream, sound good?" He took her hand in his, further serving to unnerve the girl until she finally agreed. It took Deidara a few minutes to hassle the keys to Sasori's car from the red head, but eventually they were pulling out of the driveway much faster than Kimi liked. The girl was more than a little confused by the city streets, she'd just moved here with her friends whom she'd had a falling out with. The crummy apartment she was in was spewn with all sorts of junk, bottles, papers, clothing and carry out boxes covered the floor. the chair she claimed to own was a cream color, dirty from the move and the other house mates. After she collected the rest of her belongings and a large bottle of vodka (she claimed it was collateral for money they owed her) they were on this marry way to the ice cream shop.

Now seated on the curb, each with a vanilla cone, Kimi was already feeling better, not only because of her good fortune, but because she was making a new friend.

"So, I told you how I got here, now you," she shoved her ice cream into her mouth to avoid having to talk again. Everyone with good manners knew you shouldn't talk with your mouthful.

"Shit, I came here with nothing. My parents are god damned rich, but I got real sick of them, they were never around you know, so uh, when I turned eighteen I just left," he took bites of his quickly melting ice cream, speaking between bites, "Mr. Akasuna is gonna wonder where his car is."

"What'd you call him?" Kimi asked, throwing her cup away and pulling out a tube of hand sanitizer from her purse.

"Uh, he's my boss so, uh, I'm supposed to call him that at work and," Kimi nodded, understanding, so he stopped speaking as they got into the car and drove home.

When they arrived Chinese take out was on the table. After roping Kisame into carrying the chair up the stairs for them, Deidara grabbed them a box and a couple of bowls and made his way up after them with Kimi's second suite case.

Being a germaphobe, Kimi refused to sit on the bed until after she cleaned it, so the night ended with them sitting on the floor eating Chinese with the windows open. The view wasn't great but Kimi was still able to see the sky turning purple and the building line on the horizon as the sun set.

The room was as long as the house and the door was in the floor, only an old ladder was there to help them up and down. The walls on the east side of the room were straight, however on the west, where the two person bed was, they sloped with the roof, giving that side a unique A frame look. The carpet was old and not terribly worn, however dust covered everything and there were no curtains in sight on the faded grey walls. The light fixture was dated, however there were shelves on the eastern sections walls, enough room Kimi supposed for her clothing and anything else she picked up.

"Bust out the vodka," Deidara urged but she refused, not without clean cups she told him, so Deidara got a pair of red solo cups from his bedroom after a momentary wait. After inspecting the cups, she uncapped the bottle. After they threw back the cups like shot glasses and the burn in her throat eased, she thought to ask how old her new friend was.

"Nineteen," he said casually, but Kimi nearly spat out her next drink.

"Give me that! Your underage!" She freaked, trying to snatch the cup away from him.

"Relax hm, nobody's gonna tell," he laughed, and poured himself another drink. Kimi still didn't like it. He couldn't tell if she was a push over or just afraid to argue. Deidara left her around midnight, but the twenty five year old girl was still up, lost in thought, at three am.

It'd taken so much for her to move, she mused, and now forced to admit she really only moved because her friends pressured her into it. She was alone in this strange place, and unable to sleep on the bed because her mind reasoned it had all sorts of germs harbored on it. She was now quite drunk and tired, laying with her head propped up on one of her chair's arms and her feet over the other side, she covered herself with a leaf printed throw blanket and cried for a while. She was absolutely smashed, and she reasoned that was the only reason she was crying, though with alcohol in her brain she couldn't put two and two together.

She awoke before the sun had even began to peek over the skyline. She hadn't slept much, but she slept enough to burn most of the alcohol off, leaving her with a splitting head ache. She resolved to go out and get some basics once she got paid, a mini fridge, a micro wave, maybe a water cooler. Probably not all at once, she didn't have the money, but eventually if she had it her way she'd never have leave her room. She found a nearly dry box of wet wipes in one of her suite cases and dusted off some shelving to put her cloths away. She hated how she'd left in a hurry. Everything was crammed into her suite cases, the shirts with the jeans and her winter cloths with her summer, it drove her batty.

By the time everything was to her liking, almost everyone had left for work besides the recently unemployed Hidan and Sasuke, one of the tenants younger brother. Pulling the list from her pants pocket, she gave it a once over.

'Check laundry sign up sheet (make sure it's fair), make dinner plans (two weeks in advance!), mind the living room, clear hallways, process necessary daily paperwork,' it read, giving way to a longer list that spanned both sides of the page. Christ was had she gotten herself into?

This is is sort of a mediocre first chapter, I had to work some ideas out quick, when I get more time I'll update with something better!


End file.
